Advances in electronics and telemetry have resulted in the miniaturization of medical devices such that medical devices which previously required large stationary equipment can now be worn about the person, who can be monitored or receive treatment while pursuing normal daily tasks.
One area of such advances has been in the treatment of diabetes. An estimated twenty-six million people in the United States, or about 8% of the population, have diabetes. This percentage is expected to increase in the near-term as the population ages. Wearable glucose monitors and insulin pumps have been developed which allow persons under treatment for diabetes to be monitored and receive insulin while carrying on their day-to-day tasks.
Current portable medical devices such as insulin pumps communicate with a glucose sensor/transmitter device that continuously monitors sensor activity over a radio frequency network. Small, compact continuous glucose monitors (CGMs) lack a user interface, so the CGMs send sensor information as readings to the insulin pump that provide user interfaces to allow the user to monitor these sensor information readings with graphs, icons, sensor alerts, selectable sensor readings, and statistical output. The insulin pump saves the sensor readings in a sensor history area that can be displayed to the user or downloaded to an external reporting application to provide the user and/or health care provider with a record of the insulin therapy delivered by the pump as reported by the CGM's sensor readings information.
Unfortunately, noise or interference which occurs when the CGM attempts to send sensor information to the insulin pump can prevent the insulin pump from receiving the information. Loss of power can also disable the CGM or insulin pump. This results in gaps in the sensor readings stored in the pump's sensor history area. Without this sensor information, the user interface is unable to provide the user or health care provider with a complete display of the patient history or a complete record of the results of the insulin therapy delivered by the pump.
It would be desirable to have a physiological sensor history backfill system and method that would overcome the above disadvantages.